NZ musician magazine have just announced that the NZ Album Chart is set to include sales of Albums at gigs.
"RIANZ have announced that to reflect buying pattern changes in the declining retail market, sales of music albums at artists’ gigs will from now on count towards the Official NZ Album Chart. Previously only traditional retail sales counted toward the chart, with online sales added about two years ago.
The new changes open up the chart rules around who is eligible to file sales returns, bringing artists themselves into the equation. Venue sales returns will have to be signed by the artist, the venue and the record company, with the sales figures counted as being made on the day of the gig and eligible for that week’s chart. Strict rules will govern how the returns from gigs are managed and CEO Campbell Smith says RIANZ have the power of audit over every return with some pretty severe penalties for falsifying sales information."
This could have a number of implications for those artists who actually care about getting in to the NZ charts as at present it only takes approx 20 album sales to get in to the top 100 Album chart!
For the independent labels and artists this could mean that you stand a much better chance of getting in to the charts if your primary channel for music sales is direct to fans. On the flip side this could also mean that the big international acts will dominate the top slots in the charts when they play those big gigs at the Vector arena. It will be interesting to see how this is administered and what impact it will have on the chart once it is implemented.
It couldn’t find any evidence online to say NZ is the first country to implement this kind of response to the changing music market, it seems the UK and US charts haven’t implemented this yet and I would guess they never will due to the sheer number of venues and acts involved.
Here’s a few possible implications once this gets up and running, let me know how you think it will impact on music sales and if you even care about the NZ music charts.
- Roy Ayers will reach number 20 in the album charts after selling CD’s at his show in Auckland in October, nice work Roy!
- Ddub dominate the charts in 2009 after playing a 88 date non stop tour of NZ!
- Small collectives of musicians band together to put on regular tours and constantly feature in the charts after selling low budget compilation CD’s at their gigs.
- Bands spend less money on traditional marketing channels to launch their Albums and instead focus on building a strong social media presence so they can mobilise their fans to attend their live shows and buy their CD’s. (you should be doing this already)
- Bands stop playing in-stores and just play proper gigs!
- Mixtapes by talented local hiphop artists get the recognition they deserve.
- Dance music promoters begin to setup record labels and sell music direct to a captive audience.
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